


Scary Stories

by deathwailart



Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Babysitting, Bedtime Stories, Dwalin is the worst at bedtime stories, Fantastic Racism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 09:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason Dwalin isn't the babysitter who puts young dwarves to bed.  It's not the war stories, it's the ones passed down to him and Balin by their mother and father, the ones the dwarves have been telling for centuries by now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scary Stories

It's part of who they are, to want to be brave (and they are brave, Mahal made them to be strong, to endure, to be stout and stalwart in the face of anything) but wee badgers are but wee badgers, all piss and vinegar, fake bluster when swinging wooden swords and shields with their high voices echoing off stone walls. And those of the line of Durin are the ones who trace their way back to the father of the dwarves; Dwalin is not just Mister (Uncle) Dwalin to Thorin's nephews the way family friends so often are, he is blood to them and to their people their ties are everything. It's why he helps with the two tiny horrors Dís brought into this world whenever he can. Balin spends more time with them because he teaches them their letters and their history – Dwalin will teach them how to wield their weapons properly once they're bigger (he thinks they're about right but who is he to argue if a mother and an uncle want to keep them as boys for a bit longer) the same way Thorin will teach them how to smith. Usually Thorin takes care of the boys given that he and Dís share a home but whenever Dís takes time to have a break, to visit with other dwarf women or to perform duties of her own - because she is as much a part of the line of Durin as Thorin and she gave birth to two fine sons within five years of each other, it's a feat that is celebrated widely amongst their people – and it's when it's just Thorin that Dwalin comes by. Neither of them know how Dís manages it. Aye the boys might run her ragged but she still gets them to listen far more than Thorin or Dwalin manage it.  
  
Tonight though something requires both Thorin and Dís and there is no one they would trust more to keep the heirs safe. Balin has gone home already after saying he had documents to get to and oh his dear brother the fabled warrior wouldn't be afraid of bathing two wee badgers who somehow managed to get their dinner in their hair and ears now would he? Pride is important to their people and Dwalin wrestles them both into the bath with carved wooden toys to distract them. If he ends up just as wet as them then that's just how it is and he was probably in need of a bath anyway. And if Kíli decides to run around naked as the day he came into the world as Fíli cackles and encourages him then it's just practice, keeping him on his toes.  
  
(Of course Thorin and Dís never let him forget it. It's a sore blow but Thorin's smiles are rare and this brings not only a smile but the deep belly laugh that Dwalin thought he lost even before the dragon came to Erebor, when he would watch his grandfather and king with troubled eyes.)  
  
"Tell us a story!" Fíli demands once he's finally in bed, Kíli snuggled alongside him as is their custom. Dwalin can still remember faintly when he was small and curled up in the same bed as Dwalin but the memories now are on the road, before and after battles. He hopes the lads will only remember nights like this.  
  
"Yes! A scary story!" Kíli continues, mumbled from where his face is smothered under the blankets, big dark eyes peeping at Dwalin from beneath thick furs.  
  
"I'm not a good storyteller like Balin," Dwalin replies and he isn't self-conscious about it except that a part of him is. Balin has a knack for how to weave words together no matter what he's talking about: history, financial matters, tales in the tavern. He's more eloquent. Dwalin's stories are rough and bawdy, someone usually fills in the gaps and most stories he knows are for when the lads have beards and have bloodied their blades in battle. (It shocks him how little he wants to see that day, that it's almost a physical pain to imagine them bigger than they are now holding real weapons and fighting real foes.)  
  
"But we want a story," Kíli whines and he pops up from under the covers to pout full force, Fíli nodding away.  
  
"A _scary_ story," Fíli elaborates and their little eyes are bright, both of them leaning forward with expectant looks on their faces and Dwalin cannot resist; they'll fall asleep anyway, one snuggled under either arm allowing him to tuck them both in and sharpen his blades and check all the locks until their mother and uncle return.  
  
He should know better at his age, not only about giving in to children but about what's appropriate as a story and what isn't.  
  
But scary stories...well his mother and father told him and Balin stories. It can't hurt. They're stories dwarves have grown up with for so long that the origins are almost forgotten so he brings a lamp closer and sets it down on the bedside table, gesturing for the boys to make room for him. Kíli lets loose an excited gleeful shriek and as soon as Dwalin is settled, he launches himself at him, Fíli leaning forward and practically vibrating with excitement. Dwalin is going to be dead if they end up with nightmares. Dís will beat him bloody with a smile on her face and Thorin will cheerfully get rid of the body and Balin will just sigh that way he does whenever Dwalin does anything he deems to be particularly dense.  
  
"These are stories my mother and father told to me and to Balin when we were your age," he begins, leaning down so he can speak in a raspy growl to them.  
  
"That must've been forever ago," Fíli whispers cheekily, prompting peals of giggles from Kíli who claps both hands over his mouth even as his tiny shoulders shake.  
  
"Mind your manners lads, bad things happen to cheeky wee badgers who don't respect their elders." Fíli is quick to shut himself up then as Dwalin tries to remember how this story starts. "Now you should know your history to know enough about the necklace of the dwarves, the way we were hunted by the elves too," and they both nod earnestly because they've been taught their history well, "but there are others stories about elves that we dare not repeat outside our own homes and we must speak of them in whispers only. The elves have not been content to cheat and slaughter us for sport and children are as rare to them as they are to us," perhaps rarer, Dwalin knows none who have ever seen an elven child and dwarven children are so rare and precious that they guard them somewhat jealousy. Everyone pitches in if a neighbour has a child and needs to support them. It's what has helped to keep Erebor's refugees so close all these years after exile. "Oh but they hate that we have young ones and seek to take them for their own to do unspeakable things; stories talk of elven songs, their unnatural faces that remain unchanging and their voices that sing in many tongues, as clear as bells. You see boys, the elves know how to use this to their advantage. We know of the world beneath the earth," even if it is not the world these boys should know, at least they still have good senses and an ability to navigate when surrounded by stone even at this young age, "but save for orcs and goblins who creep their way in, there is little to fear. Only the stone and _we_ know how to work stone, how to carve out our great halls within the very depths of the mountain itself."  
  
He pauses to make sure they have no questions to ask. Kíli will usually blurt them out because he's too young to keep his excitement to himself but Fíli is old enough to have a more firm grasp of his manners and how he shouldn't interrupt until it's urgent. For once they have nothing to say and so sit spellbound clutching at his arms with enraptured eyes. Dwalin clears his throat and tries to remember how best to continue. The last time a story like this was told to him he'd been held in his mother's arms with his father leaning in close too, all of them gathered close with a single lamp (more ornate, a gilded courtship gift made by his father for his mother) between them that danced and flickered with every breath and movement. Not even Balin can summon the magic that brought a room alive when their parents told stories.  
  
"Erebor stood, _stands_ ," he carries on (it's always hard to know what tense any of them should use when talking of their forgotten home and it varies depending on mood or day to day) and bends his head lower still, "near the forests of the Woodland Realm where they have giant monsters of spiders and other creatures besides. We have never been ones to love the things that grow or have talent for them because the elves woke them first – they taught trees to speak of all things, woke them and elves will entice strangers in to bring the trees things to feast upon, branches to spear through flesh, vines and roots to strangle. The hollows of trunks are where they will devour that poor soul whole and crush them down into nothingness." There are twin gasps from either side. He has talent enough for little ones it would seem. "The spiders hang you from their great webs as the elves laugh behind their hands. Still that is nothing. The forest creatures they might bend to their will but the elves will inflict the worst of things upon the unsuspecting, upon dwarves they cheated and slaughtered, dwarves they hunted for sport as though they were nothing more than wild animals." And he doesn't mean for his voice to come out as a snarl but it does. Ever will he remember the look upon Thorin's face when Thorin told them of sighting Thranduil from above riding a great beast with a whole army alongside him only to turn away. To turn his back.  
  
"Mister Dwalin?" Kíli's voice brings him back to the present and he realises that he has probably been silent far too long.  
  
"It's not too scary for you, is it lads?"  
  
"Never!" Fíli sounds less sure than before but Dwalin will not argue with him because he finds himself wanting to continue.  
  
"Now where was I... Aye, the elves are fair singers, even I will not deny it or I would be a fool but one should beware such voices and songs. Our scholars know many of their words for they spread their languages freely unlike ours that we keep safe because they belong to us and they will not be taken away by anyone but there are secret songs, unknown words. A spell they weave as surely as spiders weave webs. If you hear that song you cannot resist. At least not when you are so young. You must be brave and true to withstand it for these are the songs they use to lead you off the roads or from your beds, to stumble laughing and full of joy into dark places, the trees growing so close they become a great cage, wolves with their hackles raised waiting with hunger in their bellies. All your joy turns to tears then. The elves will smile when you follow their song, cup your cheeks with their delicate hands and transfix you with their old eyes."  
  
When he pauses (not for dramatic effect, he's trying to remember the story) Fíli wriggles and tilts his head back to stare up at Dwalin. "What then? What do they do?"  
  
"This is the scariest part at all. They feed you honeyed bread and wine, so sweet it makes you sleepy. They build a great fire and sing and dance about it and try to make you join in but the heat is too much and you will swoon-"  
  
"What's swooning?" Kíli asks with a frown wrinkling his brow.  
  
"Fainting," Dwalin explains and Kíli nods, satisfied enough with the explanation.  
  
"When you come to your senses their smiles are cruel and sharp as the blades they wield, deadly things glittering in the moonlight. The woods about you will be quiet, too quiet, and the poor dwarfling they've stolen from their family," his parents said mother and father but the boys lost their father before Kíli even came into this world and Fíli still flinches when the word is mentioned now and again, "well that child will be struggling, weeping and trying to flee but the elves will not listen. They will come with their knives and quick as you like thrust them into a soft belly!" The words are punctuated by a sharp jab of a finger into the stomachs of the boys prompting yelps. "They'll cut them up like beef or venison and ignore please for mercy and then gobble them up, no better than trolls. These are the stories elves want us to forget and that is why we only speak of them here. So beware any song carried on the wind that sounds high and clear and fanciful. Despair is at the end of that road, pain and all your loved ones weeping until Mahal brings you together again when everyone's time has come."  
  
Their tiny faces are white when he is done, eyes wide, like saucers and when Dwalin rises from the bed to tuck them in they huddle close, checking in every dark corner not for orcs or wargs who might creep out but for elves who will try to lure them with soft voices singing in languages they don't understand. He watches Kíli snuggle himself against his brother, dark head tucked beneath his chin, fingers clutching tight at his nightshirt.  
  
"Leave the lamp?" Fíli asks and Dwalin nods, moving it so it won't be knocked by a flailing limb. There's noise at the door, Thorin and Dís and he bids them goodnight and heads back to his own home, chuckling to himself quietly.  
  
The next morning he is rudely awakened by their mother glaring down at him, cursing this fool son of Fundin in a low, dangerous voice and Dwalin counts himself lucky he only has a black eye and bloodied nose by the time she's through. Balin's grave composure only lasts until she is gone and then he collapses in helpless laughter, wondering what madness took hold of him; Thorin is even worse in the forge, snorting and shaking his head every few minutes. Dwalin gets banned from telling stories unless someone else is around to make sure he's not going to fill the heads of the boys with rubbish. Ah well Dori has a younger brother (much younger and maybe someone should have put some proper fear into Nori so he wouldn't be someone Dwalin is trying to throw into a cell every other week) and there's Glóin's lad too. Surely someone will appreciate how a warrior tells stories to children.

**Author's Note:**

> Given what happened with Thingol's necklace (the escaping dwarves said he cheated them leading to the battle) I decided to have some fun with the sort of bedtime stories dwarves might tell about elves given just how long they've had grudges against one another so the stories are all wild exaggerations obviously.


End file.
